Thicker Than Water

Rating:
Summary: Great author, mediocre book
Review: I feel that Kathryn Harrison is a great author, as I was an instant admirer/fan after reading her novel "The Kiss".

Though I'm not sure if "Thicker Than Water" or "The Kiss" was written first, I found this book to be self-indulgent and repetitive. No matter what order they were written in, they deal with a subject matter all too similar. Perhaps Harrison didn't exercise her demons the first time and decided to take another long-winded stab at it. I give this book four stars because it's very well-written. One star off for pure redundancy. Just my two-cents.

Rating:
Summary: OK
Review: Kathryn Harrison is one of my favorite writers, but of all her five books this is the worst. In substance it is nearly identical to "The Kiss", which is a superior piece of work.

Rating:
Summary: OK
Review: Kathryn Harrison weaves the reader inside her detailed writing in "Thicker than Water" with extreme craft and precision. Her subject matter is real and disturbing, but at the same time her writing is beautiful and multi-layered. Unlike "The Kiss" and "Exposure," she strays from the mainstream to experiment in this poetic-prose masterpiece.

Rating:
Summary: A Hypnotic examination of mother-daughter incest
Review: Kathryn Harrison weaves the reader inside her detailed writing in "Thicker than Water" with extreme craft and precision. Her subject matter is real and disturbing, but at the same time her writing is beautiful and multi-layered. Unlike "The Kiss" and "Exposure," she strays from the mainstream to experiment in this poetic-prose masterpiece.

Rating:
Summary: A Masterpeice of Darkness
Review: Kathryn Harrison's debut novel is a masterpiece of darkness. In the same lyrically beautiful words that read more like a poem than prose, Harrison magically weaves a tale of a daughter who is both forgotten and clung to. Although melodrama abounds in this book, Harrison has it all well under control and the characterizations and pacing are just perfect. This is a book that will haunt you, years after you finish the last word.

Rating:
Summary: A Masterpeice of Darkness
Review: Kathryn Harrison's debut novel is a masterpiece of darkness. In the same lyrically beautiful words that read more like a poem than prose, Harrison magically weaves a tale of a daughter who is both forgotten and clung to. Although melodrama abounds in this book, Harrison has it all well under control and the characterizations and pacing are just perfect. This is a book that will haunt you, years after you finish the last word.

Rating:
Summary: Disturbing...
Review: The first book I read by Kathryn Harrison was 'Exposure', which I loved. I picked up 'Thicker Than Water' expecting to love it, too. I ended up giving it to a friend of mine - my initial reaction after finishing it was that I couldn't deal with having it on my bookshelf.

After a couple of years (and after 'The Kiss' came out - which I read and, oddly enough, loved) I picked up 'Thicker Than Water' again. It still disturbed me, but I think it disturbed me less knowing that it was based on something that had occurred. (Notice that I say 'based'...all the critics denouncing Harrison for writing an 'autobiographic account disguised as a first novel' are, in my humble opinion, full of it.) I think what bothered me in the first place was that someone could just make up such a thing...that someone could, with merely the power of their imagination, make it seem so real. Which Harrison does. She has a gift for bringing the reader inside her head.

The only reason I give it 4 stars as opposed to 5 is because, as I said, it disturbed me.

But sometimes it's good to be disturbed.